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Ball and Socket connection

Ball and Socket connection

Ball and Socket connection

(OP)
I'm a bit brain fried today.  I have a ball and socket joint in an assembly.  I can get the rigid/flexible thing going, but I'm having trouble where my socket wants to spin around.

I want to stop the spinning motion when the socket comes into contact with the ball stud.  The set up based on a coincident relationship of the origins.  This why the socket spins and spins.

Any suggestions?

Christopher Zona - Product Designer
Concord, Ontario

RE: Ball and Socket connection

I'm a tad unclear about the specifics of your question.  However, you ought to be able to mate your socket such that it doesn't spin.  Make a parallel mate with the front plane of the socket to the front plane of your assembly (or similar) and the spinning should stop (your orientation may vary).

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe trumps reason.

RE: Ball and Socket connection

(OP)
Unfortunately, the parallel mate will not work.  I had thought about that, but the travel of the socket to the ball is circular and at a varying angle.

I will take a look at the motion limiters and see if something applies there.

Thanks,

Christopher Zona - Product Designer
Concord, Ontario

RE: Ball and Socket connection

Limit mates, mate? Angle restricted to a range, eh?
Or add the boss or bolt to the thru hole in the ball and create a limit mate to touch but not penetrate that boss.

--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2005 SP 4.0 (reluctant to change)
Nvidia Quadro FX 1000
AMD Athalon 1.8 GHz 2 Gig RAM

RE: Ball and Socket connection

What you need, physically, is a Hookes Joint. The constraint removes the axial spin DOF from a spherical joint.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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RE: Ball and Socket connection

I realize this is an old thread but I figured I would try to revive to get an answer. I am in need of a way to restrict movement of a ball and socket joint, and I can't seem to figure it out. I tried to download the file "Joystick.zip" but the file hosting site won't let me get it and I can't figure out why. I also when to the www.mikejwilson.com site to look at the joystick file however it does not nessacarily fix the problem -- the base is not fixed and can move all around. Furthermore, I can't figure out what was done with the "limiter" part. So, are they the same? Is there any way I can restrict the movement of a "joystick" type assembly and have the base fixed?

RE: Ball and Socket connection

Thanks for posting, however I still cannot download the file, and I have no clue why. The page just seems to time out....

RE: Ball and Socket connection

Do a google search for "gimbal".  This mechanism should do what you want.  You can keep the ball-and-socket joint, but use the geometry of the gimbal to prevent the ball from revolving around its own axis while still allowing it to revolve around the original base axes.

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